RIEB Seminar
RIEB Seminar
RIEB Seminar
Jointly supported by Kobe University Center for Social System Innovation / Rokko Forum
| Date & Time | Monday, April 17, 2023, 13:20 - 14:50 |
|---|---|
| Place | Hybrid (Face-to-face / Online Seminar by Zoom) |
| Intended Audience | Faculty, Graduate Students, and People with Equivalent Knowledge |
| Langage | English |
| Remarks | Please complete the registration before April 11. The seminar details will be sent to the registered emails. Registration Form (Due: Apr 11) |
13:20 - 14:50
- Topic
- The Affordable Care Act, Marriage Penalties and Marital Status (joint with Lauren Jones and Guangyi Wang)
- Speaker
- Tansel YILMAZER (Department of Human Sciences, Ohio State University)
- Abstract
- The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provided publicly funded and subsidized health insurance to millions of Americans. Because of program eligibility and generosity rules, the ACA is not marriage neutral. Depending on a couple's income level, income distribution across partners, family size, state of residence, and age, ACA insurance benefits grow or shrink if a couple chooses to marry. We illustrate the marriage subsidies and penalties embedded in the ACA Medicaid expansion and premium tax credits. Using data from the American Community Survey (ACS), we explore whether the ACA marriage penalties causally affect marriage decisions. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find evidence that ACA marriage penalties greatly affected marital behavior. We estimate that 1 percent increase in ACA marriage penalties is associated with 0.03 percent reductions in transitions from cohabitation to marriage and 0.05 percent increase in transitions from marriage to divorce. The estimates from simulated instrument approach are consistent with our main findings.